Alright, let's get this straight. Some 22-year-old kid, Ibrahim Shah, gets dinged from Anduril because he came off as "aloof" during his interview? Give me a freaking break. The story's been making the rounds, and I'm already tired of the LinkedIn gurus patting him on the head and saying, "It's all part of the journey!"
No, it ain't.
This isn't about "journey." It's about the soul-crushing reality of trying to make it in the tech world, especially when you're aiming for the "disruptive" defense sector. Anduril, with its Oculus-founder-wannabe vibes, is selling a very specific brand of kool-aid: "Come work for us, and you too can be a billionaire weapons dealer!"
Shah says he emphasized his "desire to work at a company that has real impact, where we're working with the US government and allies and saving lives." Okay, let's unpack that steaming pile of PR garbage. "Saving lives"? By building autonomous underwater vehicles like the Ghost Shark [mentioned in the article about the Australian navy]? By developing cruise missiles with Poland? I'm not seeing the "saving lives" angle here, unless you count the lives of shareholders.
It's the same old song and dance: dress up war profiteering as patriotic duty. And these companies are getting better and better at it. Seriously, how many "defense startups" need to exist? I'm starting to think everyone who graduates with a CS degree are immediately funneled into some military industrial complex pipeline.
And the kid even admits he was thinking about how to solve coding problems while being interviewed. I mean, offcourse, who wouldn't be?
Here's the kicker: Shah admits he was nervous about the technical assessment and tried to "manufacture a calm aura." That's where he screwed up, according to the recruiter. He wasn't "super bright and happy and excited" like he was during the initial screening. He wasn't performing the role of "eager young innovator" convincingly enough.
So, what's the lesson here? Be yourself? Authenticity? Nah. The lesson is: learn to act. Learn to project the image of someone who's both technically brilliant and completely bought into the company's mission, no matter how morally bankrupt it might be. It's not enough to be smart; you have to perform smart. You have to perform enthusiastic.
It's like auditioning for a reality show, except the prize is a six-figure salary and the chance to contribute to the next generation of killing machines.
Shah's takeaway is that "it's better to be nervous and authentic than to pretend like you have composure." Maybe. But I suspect that's not the whole story. The real trick is to appear authentic while still hitting all the right notes. It's about gaming the system, figuring out the algorithm of authenticity.
And let's be real, the kid's already doing it. His tweet about getting rejected went viral, and now he's getting interview requests left and right. He's turned a rejection into an opportunity. He's learned the game, and he's playing it well.
But here's the question that keeps nagging at me: at what cost? What happens when we're all so busy performing authenticity that we forget what it actually means to be authentic? What happens when every interaction becomes a calculated performance, designed to maximize our chances of success? Are we just becoming highly optimized robots, programmed to climb the corporate ladder?
Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one here. Maybe I'm just a bitter old cynic who's lost touch with the boundless optimism of youth. Maybe Anduril is actually saving lives, and I'm just too jaded to see it.
Nah.
